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Walker to Wisconsinites: There's a new cap on your dignity

While their goals have been public knowledge all along, it took no time at all after Tuesday's record-breaking election was sold to the highest bidders for Governor Re-Elect Scott Walker and his right-hand men, Senator Re-Elect Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Leader Robin Vos to announce their priority agenda items for 2015: getting "even more aggressive" about demoralizing the working poor and doubling down on their assault on Wisconsin schools. As expected, the most pernicious and gleefully anticipated "reform" is expanding the state voucher program to lift caps and income limits,
draining money and resources from public schools and allowing even kids
of wealthy parents to attend private schools on the taxpayer dime. The Republican-led legislature also plans to push for dropping Common Core standards by allowing partisans and legislators a say in writing new "Wisconsin Standards" (and we've seen how well that idea has gone in Texas and Colorado). But the crown jewel of this plan is to implement an absurdly cost-ineffective, denigrating, and unconstitutional strategy that has failed and/or is being challenged everywhere it's been tried: drug-testing recipients of government programs.

Given, however, this administration's craven obsession with "accountability," MoD assumes that the mandate to demonstrate drug-free eligibility will be equally extended to ALL recipients of government handouts, a figure that has risen dramatically under Walker's watch as he continues to "compensate" those who contributed to his campaign with crony contracts and tax breaks. Because surely the son of a preacher man has no intention of singling out the least among us as the only recipients of government funds who should be held accountable to his high standards. We therefore present this handy guide to determining whether or not you need to report to the specimen-collection oupost, in anticipation of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am speed with which this legislation will be shoved through the legislature by the Republican majority.

Are you on the dole? Get ready.

!!! ATTENTION ENTITLEMENT RECIPIENTS !!!Are you an able-bodied adult who enjoys
government handouts?No problem!In Wisconsin, we love nothing more than helping
people who need out help. But there’s nothing we hate more than wasting the
money of hard-working taxpayers!Our new
policy provides the perfect solution: We’re implementing an unconstitutional policy
that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and save virtually
nothing!Simply submit to a routine drug test
to ensure that your dignity eligibility is preserved!

None of this is law yet. The time to speak up is now.

As Ruth Conniff made clear after the harrowing results of the midterm election, "Progressives need their own strategy. Not a one-election strategy. Not
another well-funded, good-looking, poll-tested candidate. But a massive
grassroots organizing drive that speaks to voters' deepest concerns."

One of my deepest concerns is that in constantly degrading and demoralizing the very people who make this state great - hard-working people struggling to make ends meet and looking for ways to improve their lives and the lives of their communities, the message we're sending through regressive policies like this only further disenfranchise them from the political process. At a time when we need to come together, Walker's first act of reelection is to get "even more aggressive" about driving us apart. His blame-the-worker, blame-the-poor attitude distracts us from the wasteful cut-and-borrow policies of his administration and the cronies and campaign contributors who will benefit from each and every item on their 2015 legislative agenda.

The time to organize is now.

We working stiffs might not have the money or political clout that Walker & Vos' billionaire policy-pushers have, but we have something even better on our side: democracy.

They work for us.

If anyone's going to suffer the humiliation of peeing in cup to benefit on our dime, let's start at the top.

PS: Special note of thanks to the MoD followers who helped put this list together!

1 comment:

the MoD motto:

If you don't have anything nice to say, you've identified a topic about which you are morally obligated to speak.Raise your hand if you're not afraid to ask a question.Raise your voice if you're not afraid of free speech.Raise some hell if you're not afraid to change the world.

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